


A Man of Moderation and Restraint

by wombuttress



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Background Femslash, Closeted Character, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:40:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8392969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wombuttress/pseuds/wombuttress
Summary: Victor Trevelyan is courting Lady Montilyet, and he is very happy about it, probably. He's pretty sure, anyway...So when an interloper from Antiva impugns upon their devoted relationship, Victor has no choice but to spring to action. It would just be a lot easier if  he knew how to duel, or if the blasted Antivan would stop giving him those full-lipped smirks, and if his stupid accent weren't quite so distracting in a way that Josephine's somehow never seemed to be...(Trevelyan, so deep in the closet he's having an adventure with a talking lion and some badgers. Lord Otranto, exploiting.)





	

Victor Trevelyan was, in all things, a moderate man.

His temper was easy, his demeanor mild. Being the fourth out of seven children, he strove infrequently, if ever. 

Nothing but the absurdest chance of fate had landed him in the position of Inquisitor. Certainly, he was not unsuited to the role. He was noble born and raised, if in something of a backwater. He could passably swing a big sword, and was decently well-liked by the nobles, and he never did anything excessively stupid. In all these things, he was acceptable. The important thing was that his hand glowed green, people thought that made him holy, and would therefore follow him into the Void itself.

It was quite a lot. Victor never did bother to fully establish what his opinion on it was.

Still, he was a dutiful son, so when his parents wrote, with a reminder that he really ought to find a high-status woman to marry, now that he was such a big important man, Victor accepted right away that this was something he ought to do.

He considered his options. It wasn’t as though he lacked choice. He had already received nigh-unending proposals of marriage, as well as less…proper-minded suggestions, from women all across Thedas. Perhaps he ought to have simply asked Josephine to pick the best of them—or asked her to arrange him something herself.

But the thought of marriage to some faceless woman made his skin crawl. When Josephine suggested this herself, he rejected it out of hand.

Josephine, Victor thought suddenly. Josephine was kind, and noble born, and beautiful, probably. He quite liked Josephine. Josephine was wonderful. 

He imagined being married to Josephine. That seemed like something he could manage.

So Victor Trevelyan began to court Josephine Montilyet. Given that Victor had practically no idea how to court a woman, and Josephine had practically no idea that she was being courted, it went quite well. Well enough for Victor to receive a handful of heartbroken missives from women he’d never met or heard of before.

Leliana expressed a certain disapproval, and took an hour out of her evening to lock him in a room in the rookery and question him about his intentions. Victor merely smiled blandly and informed her that yes, he was certainly very attracted to Josephine. In fact, he was definitely reasonably certain that attraction was the thing going on here.

Pretty sure, anyway.

\--

Everything went swimmingly for a while, and then ceased to go at all.

“Oh,” Victor said. “You’re getting married? Congratulations.”

“I am not getting married,” Josephine said sharply. “But it will take me a long time to disentangle myself from this engagement. Until then,” she cast her eyes down, “It would be unwise for us to carry on.”

“Oh,” said Victor. “Okay.”

Josephine sighed, looking disappointed, tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, and returned to her desk.

Victor felt vaguely that he ought to have said something comforting or helpful, but nothing came to mind. He stood awkwardly in her office, watching her scratch away at some paperwork, when he remembered that he had a bit of business with Cassandra to conclude.

He ambled over to the practice yard. Cassandra reported economically on something he must have instructed her to do at some point, paused, and then inquired as to his well-being.

He shrugged. “Alright, for the most part. Can’t complain. Heading to the Emprise next week, if you’re interested. Varric wants to play Wicked Grace tomorrow. And it turns out that Josephine is engaged, though, and I can’t be seen with her for the foreseeable future because her betrothed might challenge me to a duel.” Victor shrugged. “So, you know. Other than that.”

“What?” Cassandra’s blade stuck in the training dummy and vibrated there. “You mean to say—your sweetheart—your true love—is being moved upon by another man, and you mean to just stand there and accept it?”

“Well, no,” Victor said, blinking, “But it will take Josephine some time to annul the engagement, and I thought, perhaps it best…” He trailed off. He knew he wasn’t much good at these things. “Am I doing something wrong?”

Cassandra extracted her practice blade from the dummy and examined it. “Josephine,” she said stiffly, “is a beautiful, gracious, kind woman, and were it I that were courting her, I would see no recourse but to challenge this interloper to a duel myself.”

“Oh,” said Victor. “Are you sure? Because Josephine said…” He trailed off again. There were lots of things about women he didn’t know, and Cassandra was a woman, approximately. “Well, maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I am,” Cassandra said archly. “Now go and discover who this pretender to Josephine’s hand is, and demand satisfaction.”

Victor nodded pleasantly and began to walk off. Suddenly he paused, a thought niggling at the edge of his mind. “Say, Cassandra,” he said, half-turning, “this doesn’t have anything to do with how you feel about—”

“How I feel about Josephine?! Don’t be ridiculous, Inquisitor, I am merely a concerned friend, with strictly friendly feelings toward her, and how dare you ever imply otherwise?” She tugged fruitlessly at her practice sword for a while, again hopelessly embedded in the wood.

Victor had meant to say nobility, but decided it for the best not to complete that thought. There was probably some sort of situation going on here, but he was content to let it flit over his mind like a calming fog, leaving it untouched in its wake.

\--

“Lord Adorno Ciel Otranto accepts your challenge,” the Antivan messenger said at the gates of Skyhold, and carries on saying something that Victor didn’t pay attention to.

“Adorno Ciel,” he said vaguely, “Well, that’s just a ridiculously pretty name, isn’t it? Sounds like ‘heavenly adornment’. Goodness.” He blinks. “Right, well, good. I will be there, as agreed. Have a good day.”

Victor walked a full circuit around Skyhold, engaging in a good old-fashioned brood. Adorno Ciel Otranto, the Antivan nobleman, his competition for Josephine’s hand. Adorno Ciel Otranto. It really was a pretty name. Nothing at all like his pedestrian Marcher name. He was pretty sure ‘Victor’ didn’t even mean anything. 

He paused at the battlements, leaning his chin on his fist.

(“He’s been there an hour,” Blackwall muttered, watching him. “What d’you suppose he’s thinking about?”

“Clouds,” Cole said, with confidence, and did not elaborate.)

\--

It turned out that Lord Adorno Ciel Otranto was a dark, handsome man who moved like a wolf and pronounced each word like he was caressing it. Also, he was really snappy dresser.

Victor felt some kind of way about that. Intimidated. Yes, he felt intimidated.

Which was ridiculous. He was the Inquisitor, the most powerful man in Southern Thedas, and this Adorno Ciel Otranto was just some upstart petty noble. Why was he sweating? It must be this scorching Orlesian weather.

Granted, Victor had not the slightest idea on how to use a rapier. His older sisters and brother had trained with rapiers as children, but Victor had mostly run around in the mud, falling out of trees. He was better at swinging big heavy objects around, if he absolutely had to swing something.

Lord Otranto smiled, and tossed him a rapier. Victor just barely managed to catch it.

“It is humbling to make your acquaintance,” Lord Otranto said with an elegant bow, not breaking eye contact. “It is a shame it will not last longer.” 

Victor flushed flame red. In anger. The taunt, combined with that accent, was all so…enraging.

“Well—you—” He rooted desperately around in the dusty cellars of his brain for a single witty retort. “Just shut up and fight!”

This was, Victor realized vaguely, the least calm thing he had ever said to anyone in his life. And given how little he knew about fencing, probably the least wise thing he had ever said, too.

Lord Otranto laughed and lunged. Victor reacted almost too late, the pointed tip of the blade whizzing just past his ear. That left the lord too close in distance to him, allowing Victor to briefly gain an advantage by hooking his foot around the other man’s ankle. He stumbled, allowing Victor enough time to get out of distance again. He held his blade inexpertly in front of himself. They circled each other, step for step, turn for turn.

He was being toyed with. With sudden terror, Victor realized just how badly he had no idea what he was doing.

And then, Lord Otranto smirked. Suddenly, Victor’s complete lack of knowledge of what he was doing was utterly an inexorably eclipsed by his need to beat this man into the ground.

They clashed a few further times, to the rising cheers of the crowd. Victor drew first blood, but only by complete accident. The next three cuts were Otranto’s. They meant little to a man who normally swung around a double-headed maul, but somehow that was not the point. He was starting to get the hang of this Antivan dueling, but it was too little too late. Victor found himself pushed further and further back, and Otranto was still smirking with his infuriatingly full lips. The lord lunged, and Victor only barely managed to block the blade in time to avoid being skewered, leaving his face inches away from the other man’s as the flat of his blade bore down on his own.

“You’re doing well, Inquisitor,” the lord murmured (and was that really necessary, that murmur?). “Perhaps House Trevelyan is not the obscure backwater I’ve heard it to be.”

Victor barely caught the second half of his comment. He was still processing the first part. “You’re a backwater,” he snarled intelligently, and attempted a parry. Lord Otranto stepped nimbly back, chuckling, and Victor raised the weapon again.

“Stop!”

Victor stopped. Lord Otranto, mid-lunge, stopped too, and nearly fell over.

Josephine made her way out of the crowd and stood before him, arms crossed, foot tapping.

“Oh,” Victor said. “Hello, Josephine.”

She ignored the greeting, marching up to him. “What are you doing?” She tapped her foot on the cobblestones, and Maker above, the only sound in all of Val Royeux was that of Josephine’s tapping foot.

Victor stared at her, dumbfounded. He scratched his head with the hilt of his borrowed rapier. “Dueling….Lord Otranto….for your hand?”

“Is that so.” Josephine Montilyet was a woman who could inject a thousand fine knives of sharpness into three little words. Victor swallowed nervously.

“I, er…I’m afraid it is.”

“And why,” Josephine threw her hands in the air, “in the name of all that is good and reasonable,” She jabbed him in the chest, “would you take such an egregious risk?” She refolded her arms, glaring.

Victor suddenly had no idea. “I admit,” he said slowly, “that I didn’t really think this one through.”

“Apparently not,” she muttered, and turned away from him. “Since we cannot see each other until the engagement is annulled, perhaps it is best that we end things on a more permanent basis.”

Victor bowed his head, feeling shame burn deep in his gut. Josephine had been a good, kind friend, and she worked so hard, and he’d caused her so many problems. That wasn’t right. What was he doing here? This wasn’t him. He didn’t behave like this.

“If you are no longer spoken for,” Lord Otranto piped up, “perhaps you should consider marrying me, after all?”

“Marry him?” Victor squawked, standing straight.

“Yes!” The lord went down on one knee, bowing his head. It was a sight that made Victor feel some kind of way. “Will you marry me, Josephine?”

Josephine’s face took on a color and expression most unsuited to her. She waved both hands as though ridding something foul off them, and made a noise so disgusted it would have done Cassandra proud. “I’m not marrying either of you!”

She clipped decisively away, chin held high. The spectators tittered. This was assuredly the most Antivan outcome possible, they all agreed.

Victor looked after her, feeling…not much. The end of his first and only romantic relationship seemed to be taking remarkably little toll on him. Perhaps he was simply extremely emotionally resilient. Yes, that had to be it. His emotional stability was simply too strong to be affected by the winds and waves of love. This seemed reasonable. He was the Inquisitor, after all.

“Well,” Lord Otranto said wryly, and strolled to stand beside him. He clasped him on the shoulder in a friendly manner. “That seems to be that.”

Victor leapt away, his color high again. The lord shrugged, and said cheerfully, “Shall we call it a draw, then?”

He just didn’t understand it. How could a man arouse such feelings of—aggression in him? Victor didn’t even have particularly strong feelings on Corypheus, and yet this man, with his well-fitted teal waistcoat and his widows peak and catlike grace and stupid bloody accent, had the ability to override every intelligent thought Victor had ever had.

It was truly a mystery.

Victor Trevelyan, paragon of moderation and emotional stability, spun on his heel and lifted his blade once more. “I demand satisfaction, Otranto!” he declared, lurching unsteadily. “One way or another!”

The man laughed—just what did Victor have to do to get him to stop laughing?—and rejoined the fight, apparently delighted by this turn of events.

Victor had picked up just enough dueling in the brief bout to hold his own, and what he lacked in skill, he more than made up for in sheer vigor and athleticism. Lord Otranto was not humoring him now. The fight, completely pointless now, went on and on. Having gotten their fill of high dramatics, the spectators slowly drifted away, until it was none but the two of them and a few of Lord Otranto’s retainers, glancing boredly at each other and shifting uncomfortably in their armor.

As the sun began to set behind the high walls of Val Royeux, the Antivan called out, “Stop!”

Victor stumbled, and stopped. “What?” he said sullenly, panting.

“This has gone on long enough. We should call a halt.” The lord was sweating and disheveled, his cravat loose around his neck. He’d obtained a few nicks in the struggle, and was bleeding sluggishly from them. Illuminated from the back by the setting sun, it was a…striking effect.

Victor ached all over. Months of traipsing around the countryside killing random bystanders, getting mountains dropped on his head, getting chased by spiders and Orlesians and other horrors, none of it had suitably prepared his body for this. But any time he began to weaken, Lord Otranto would make an expression with That Face, or say something with That Voice, and Victor would feel entirely inclined to continue fighting again.

“I…demand…satisfaction,” he said breathlessly, doubling over.

“Yes, that is all well and good,” Lord Otranto said, “But there is nothing wrong with rescheduling exactly when you get it.”

Victor paused, clutching at a stitch in his side. “I suppose that is acceptable,” he gasped.

The lord straightened, rolling his neck, and sheathed his rapier. Victor numbly dropped his. “Excellent,” Otranto said. “Then we shall continue this, say, next month? At my estate in Antiva. I shall send an envoy to Skyhold to you, to direct you there.”

Victor nodded. “Yes. Perfect. I shall see you then. And pierce your blackguard heart, probably.”

“If I do not pierce yours first,” Otranto allowed. “I expect you’ll like the estate. We have marvelous gardens, and only the finest wines. You absolutely must share a bottle of finest red with me. My family made our fortune as vintners. Wine is our pride.”

“That sounds lovely.”

“And I shall have to give you a tour of the grounds. As a polite host, of course.”

Victor was nodding along mindlessly. 

Lord Adorno Ciel Otranto was perhaps not the cleverest of men, nor the most perceptive of them, but he did not have to be to see plainly everything that Victor did not. And what he saw right now was an unmarried, powerful nobleman who had not stopped blushing at him for the past four hours. “And as you will have had a long journey,” he went on, “I shall have to insist that you take dinner with me, first. So that when I defeat you once and for all, it cannot be said that it was merely because you were weak with hunger.”

“Yes. You’re quite right. To be continued within the month, then.”

“Around six o’clock, if you don’t mind.” The lord stepped forward and briefly kissed him on both cheeks, in the Antivan fashion, which was entirely typical and decorous, and therefore could not have been the cause of Victor’s sudden intense flush of full-body heat. That, he expected, had to do with the exertion of the recent battle.

Lord Otranto bowed again. Belatedly, Victor bowed back, watching as the Antivan departed with his retinue.

Victor stood in the square, quite alone and rather slackjawed, as the sun slipped below the horizon. Eventually, he stirred, and made to rejoin the Inquisition envoy he had brought with him, and made arrangements to return to Skyhold. He felt, he thought, oddly happy, considering how full of righteous rage he had been so recently. 

Well, that made perfect sense, he thought to himself. He’d demanded satisfaction—and he was going to get it, assuredly, within the month.

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently if you admit to Josephine that your plan was stupid, she dumps you and this scenario ensues. Seemed like ripe gay pickings to me.
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://gayspacejew.tumblr.com/)  
> [my oc blog](http://pile-of-dragon-filth.tumblr.com/)


End file.
